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Show ORIGIN AND OBJECT OF THE GREAT $50,000,000 EXPOSITION OPENED TODAY AT ST. LOUIS, the Louisiana purchase, which are lo- cated at the other end of the court of honor, in the colonnade of States surmounting sur-mounting the crescent-shaped hill anJ flanking festival ball, one of the most ornate exposition structures. The evpopltlon gates open at 8 o'clock In the morning and the large Industrial palaces at 9 o'clock to remain open o the public until sunset. At night myriads myri-ads of electric lighting devices will 51- 1 lumlnate the ground, and visitors will ' ' be permitted to enjoy the exposition until un-til 11:30 o'clock, when the gate will be closed. The exposition will not be open on Sunday at any time during the entire period. - On December 1st, seven months after the opening, the exposition will have officially terminated, and the Louisiana . Purchase expositicn will have passed into history as probably the greatest and most comprehensive exposition that the world has ever known. ST. LOUIS, Mo., April 30.-The Louisiana Louis-iana Purchase exposition, comprising a comprehensive collection and exhibition of the world's peoples, products, industries, indus-tries, modes of living, diversions, transportation trans-portation facilities; In fact, a complete universal concentration of arts, manufactures manu-factures and products of the soil, mine, forest and sea. had its Inception In 1893 snd was completed In April. 1904. The exposition commemorates the centennial centen-nial of the purchase from France, In 0803.. by the United States of the vast gtr'p of territory stretching from the GfX of Mexico to the Dominion cf Canada, Can-ada, and extending from the Mississippi river to the crest of the Rocky mountain moun-tain range, and since known as the Louisiana Purchase Territory. The entire Mississippi valley originally origi-nally belonged to France by right of (discovery, and exploration In X7S3 1 Spain acquired the Louisiana territory after the treaty o peace at Paris, when Francs, which had ceded Louisiana to Spain under the secret treaty of 1762. gave up all her other possessions in North America to Great Britain. Spain held the territory for thirty-seven years, returning It to France on the demand de-mand of Napoleon Bonaparte, through the secret treaty of St. Ildefenso, October Octo-ber 1, 1800. Napoleon was then First Consul of France. The hostile attitude of the Spaniards toward Americans navigating the Mississippi resulted in agitation which led President Thomas Jefferson to undertake the purchase of the city and island of New Orleans. In order to control the mouth of the Mississippi. Mis-sissippi. Robert R. Livingston. United States Minister to France, and James Monroe, afterward President of the United States, were accordingly commissioned com-missioned to conduct the negotiations for this transfer. Instead of the sate of the island of New Orleans alone. Napoleon Na-poleon proposed the sale of the entire Louisiana Territory toe $15,000,000 In i order to secure funds for the equipment of his armies. The representatives of the United States at once accepted the offer and the treaty was signed at Paris April 30. 1803. The formal transfer of the territory ter-ritory took place at New Orleans December De-cember 20, . 1803, and for upper Louisiana, Louisi-ana, at St Louis, on March 10, 1804. . The newly purchased territory embraced em-braced 1,000,000 square miles, and Is now divided Into the following fourteen States and Territories: Louisiana, Arkansas, Ar-kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma. Indian Territory, Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa. Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana. 1 In the fore part of 1898 an editorial i was published in a St. Louis paper to the effect that the centennials of the great events in the history of the United Unit-ed States were not all over and predicting predict-ing that the greatest was yet to be held the centennial of the acquisition of the Louisiana Territory. This editorial was taken up in the press and commented upon, resulting In organized agitation by ' the Missouri Historical society. Thus was the World's fair movement begun. Congress pasted a bill June 4, 1900, promising Government support and $5,-000,000. $5,-000,000. -appropriation if the citizens of St. Louis raised $10,000,000. On January 12, 1901, it was announced that the St Louis popular subscription list, by the sale of stock, reached $5,000,000, and on January 30, 1901. an ordinance was passed by the Municipal Assembly authorizing au-thorizing the issuance of city bonds to the amount of $5,000,000. The bill appropriating ap-propriating $5,000,000 was passed. President Pres-ident McKinley immediately signed the bill, and on March 12, 1901, appointed the national commission of nine mem-I mem-I bers. It was then decided to open tho exposition on April 30. 1903. Subsequently Subse-quently the opening was postponed one year. Officers were elected, the company was Incorporated and the site for the exposition was chosen in Forest Park, a vast natural park In the southwestern border of St Louis. -. , At the opening, excepting in a- few minor details, the Louisiana Purchase exposition stands practically completed at a cost of almost $50,000,000. The United States Government's total appropriation amounted to $7,063,000, and in addition the Government recently recent-ly loaned to the Exposition company $4,600,000, making a grand total of $11.-663,000 $11.-663,000 secured from the national Government Gov-ernment The State, municipal and other appropriations of this country made a total of almost $7,000,000. and to this is added the $10,000,000 from St. Louis end her citizens. The balance of the total' cost of the exposition was expended ex-pended by the other nations of the world. The architecture of this universal exposition ex-position Is majestic in the great Ivory white exhibit palaces, historical in the foreign and State buildings, and universally univer-sally cosmopolitan and unique in concession con-cession structures. ' The main picture comprises ten great palaces, arranged In fan-sh'ap in their location. Surmounting a hill, and 200 feet from the top of the building to the level of the exposition grounds below, stands festival balL overlooking, the cascade gardens. These three cascades are the largest waterfalls ever constructed, con-structed, and ninety thousand gallons of water a minute pour down in three magnificent torrents, at night being illuminated il-luminated by electricity. At their bases stretches the lagoon, which winds its way through the main portion of the exposition pictures and traversed by gondolas. The cascade gardens are seml-clrcular In form, sloping gradually from festival hall to the main level of the grounds. Each side ut this crescent-shaped crescent-shaped hill Is flanked with a wide stairway, stair-way, and iti crown, surmounted by festival fes-tival hall, is covered by the colonnade of States. The court of honor stretches from the main entrance to the lagoon, containing monuments typically commemorative com-memorative of the Louisiana purchase, chief of which is the Louisiana Purchase Pur-chase monument. 100 feet high, with shaft seventeen feet in diameter, surmounted sur-mounted by the statue of liberty, facing the city of St Louis and looking out to the world, a guiding star to the sculptural sculp-tural groups symbolical of the twelve States and two Territories formed from |
